Stargate Universe and Sanctuary: Syfy Renews TV Series

by Trevor Kimball, December 15, 2009

Syfy has given the go-ahead for a second season of Stargate Universe and a third season of Sanctuary. The cable channel has ordered 20 installments of each.

Stargate Universe (SGU) is the latest series in the Stargate franchise and revolves around a band of soldiers, scientists and civilians, who must fend for themselves after being forced through a Stargate. The desperate survivors emerge aboard an ancient ship which is locked on an unknown course and unable to return to Earth. It features Robert Carlyle, Justin Louis, Brian J. Smith, Elyse Levesque, David Blu, Alaina Huffman, Jamil Walker Smith, Patrick Gilmore, Peter Kelamis, Julia Benson, Jennifer Spence, Jeffrey Bowyer-Chapman, Mark Burgess, Ming-Na, Josh Blacker, Haig Sutherland, and Lou Diamond Phillips.

Sanctuary follows the adventures of Dr. Helen Magnus (Amanda Tapping), a brilliant scientist who holds the secrets of a group of strange and sometimes terrifying beings that hide among humans. Others in the cast include Robin Dunne, Emilie Ullerup, Ryan Robbins, Christopher Heyerdahl, and Agam Darshi.

SGU is expected to return in April with the second partth of its 20 episode first season. Production on season two will begin in early 2010 and is expected to start airing in the fall.

The second season of Sanctuary is currently airing and expected to finish on January 15, 2010. Production on season three will start in early 2010 and begin airing in Fall 2010. This recent pickup marks the biggest order to date for Sanctuary. Seasons one and two are comprised of only 13 episodes apiece.

What do you think? Are either or both of these shows worthy of another season? Which do you prefer?

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I realy hope to see a new season of santuary, Amanda tapping is a great actor and plays the crazy british scientist type very well. I enjoyed everything in the last two seasons exept the weird dancing scene in the season two finale … creepy arabian cordinated dances aside the series brings some well needed drama and mysterie to the syfy channel (You know ever scince they took Doctor Who off the network) and is more family freindly than SGU and less teen based than merlin.

You people are crazy! Universe is so much better than the other two…no campy, stupid other worlds with Star Trek sixties rulers, much better acting, idiotic sarcastic humor eliminated, Robert Carlyle and Louis Ferrara worth the price of admission; granted, the stones are stupid. but no one’s perfect. And David Blue…so bad, he’s good. I love this show.

SGU is actually coming along storywise. I think they are catching some heat from some of the poor programming decisions at SyFy (WHO’S IDEA WAS THAT NAME CHANGE ANYWAY?). Somehow they’ve hired someone to make programming decisions at SF that doesn’t understand sci-fi fans at all. They’ve confused us with horror movie fans – a group not noted for going to movies to exercise their brains at all. Naturally they would assume if we’d watch horror schlock, we’d really get off on wrestling? There is enough good SF out there to keep this channel going forever. They could bring back… Read more »

The Syfy channel continues to get worse. They cancel SGA and bring on Sanctuary and SGU neither of which are as good. They change their name from SciFi to Syfy which was just stupid. They play wrestling….yeah WRESTLING. Someone want to explain how they figured that Science Fiction fans also somehow are wrestling fans?? Then there are the horrific Saturday night special made for tv Syfy movies they put on. They are simply horrific. Not worth watching except to laugh at uncontrollably. I’m still holding out hope that SGU gets better and I love Eureka but the SciFi channels has… Read more »

I am following SGU only because I believe it has potential and have been a loyal SG fan since day one. If this was just another series similiar to SG:1 and SG:A I think we would all be complaining that it was getting old. I think the writers are trying something new in a slow paced character development kind of way and I think we all need to just be patient and we will be happy with what happens. Then again in a year I could be just as disappointed as the rest of you.

SGU is good, some of the characters are annoying but I really like Robert Carlyle character. The woman that plays Chloe is awful and I hope she gets the axe but other than that no other character annoys me to that extent. It is impossible to compare to SGU to SGA, SG because those are different types of shows. Personally I prefer SGA and SG but SGU is good for what it is. I wish they had never canceled SGA at least there making movies.

I enjoy Sanctuary and am glad to see them continue to create episodes.

SGU – TURN THE LIGHTS ON. What a dark piece of crap. Give the camera operator something for the DTs. The shaking and jogging is out of control. The content is at best Battle Star Galactica, and I use the term best in the sarcastic inference. OVER dramatized, all this woo goo personal interaction with the camera stuffed in someone’s face is nothing more than the failed approached used in BSG. I’m looking for a SciFi, intellectually stimulating, scientific, graphically cool entertainment. If I wanted day to day drama I would shut off the TV and invite may relatives over… Read more »

I am disappointed in SGU..it is dark, hard to follow and the actors and storyline are flat…I loved the crew of Atlantis and Shanks, Browder, Black and Judge…would love to see more of a storyline of archeologist/Indiana Jones…light, humorous storylines..I am afraid I probably won’t continue to watch SGU…or watch the DVD’s of the shows…

SGU is so god-awful I’m amazed it was created by the same writers that made SGA. The characters are all shallow and lack depth. All the show is about is sex. After 10 episodes we still don’t know the crew and quit honestly with how bad the acting is I don’t want to get to know the crew. Stories revolve more around who is sleeping with who and who is sleeping with who back on earth. It’s general hospital with a spaceship in it so they could air it on syfy. The show lacks everything that SG-1 and SGA had… Read more »

Agreed, Jim. Sanctuary is too phony and the acting is horrendous. It’s a show that begs to be canceled. Thank goodness they dropped the no-acting blonde and hired the hot little indian girl, but her part is too over the top. She’s written to talk smack about the smallest stupid thing and buck even the most basic of ideas. The rest of the show is just a fast-forward button on the tivo. SGU has great, and I do mean GREAT, bones, but the characters are all un-memerable. And the gratuitous lesbo scenes are tired and overdone. It’s like they’re just… Read more »

Well to be honest I love both the SG- tv series and Sanctuary, now I’m a big fan of Stargate and believe me the greatest, but I don’t know what happen to SGA but the producers mes up on that one, I mean the show was actually getting interesting in the last couple of two seasons – it was a let down but if they had to end it then hey “no problemo”, but one thing that I did not understand of SGU is that the first season was made of such a small amount of episodes when compared to… Read more »